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I consider myself to be a rather concrete and science-based thinker...so whenever I think of the brain, I see it as one of the most amazing and miraculous lumps of tissue ever imaginable that is present in many forms of life. In fact, it is something so special/valuable that humans cannot and may not ever come close to creating one of their own. Although we have sent sophisticated probes to Mars and we have build surgery-performing machines that negate the need for the physical presence of a surgeon in an operating room...there is still much missing from these devices. How could we ever create a being/machine that could do what the human/animal brain can do? Could we really create something that could taste, smell, feel, develop/express emotions, experience pain/happiness/fear/attachment/love all at once...plus much more? It has always been a mind-blowing phenomenon to me (no pun intended!), just one of those miracles of life...so miraculous though, that it definitely demands consideration.

During class on Thursday, I tried to venture beyond my concrete way of thinking about the brain, and our discussion of science (as a collection of observations that does not necessarily represent the truth) helped. But with that said...I still have some concrete thoughts about the more abstract topics that we discussed. For example, when we compared physical the size of the brain (maybe it weighs 5lbs, smaller than a football) to the infinite size of the sky...can we not also argue that the brain itself (whether actual or a plastic model) is a construction of the brain? So I guess I'm still on the fence...I wonder if Emily Dickinson thought of the brain in this light!